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thinking I should be free of them at last, they must needs come
wriggling down from the sky! Ugh, Serpent!’
‘But I’m NOT a serpent, I tell you!’
a–’
said Alice. ‘I’m a–I’m
‘Well! WHAT are you?’ said the Pigeon. ‘I can see you’re
trying to invent something!’
‘I–I’m a little girl,’ said Alice, rather doubtfully, as she remembered
the number of changes she had gone through that
day.
‘A likely story indeed!’ said the Pigeon in a tone of the deepest
contempt. ‘I’ve seen a good many little girls in my time, but
never ONE with such a neck as that! No, no! You’re a serpent;
and there’s no use denying it. I suppose you’ll be telling me
next that you never tasted an egg!’
‘I HAVE tasted eggs, certainly,’ said Alice, who was a very
truthful child; ‘but little girls eat eggs quite as much as serpents
do, you know.’
‘I don’t believe it,’ said the Pigeon; ‘but if they do, why then
they’re a kind of serpent, that’s all I can say.’
This was such a new idea to Alice, that she was quite silent
for a minute or two, which gave the Pigeon the opportunity of
adding, ‘You’re looking for eggs, I know THAT well enough;
and what does it matter to me whether you’re a little girl or a
serpent?’
‘It matters a good deal to ME,’ said Alice hastily; ‘but I’m not
looking for eggs, as it happens; and if I was, I shouldn’t want
YOURS: I don’t like them raw.’
‘Well, be off, then!’ said the Pigeon in a sulky tone, as it settled
down again into its nest. Alice crouched down among the trees
as well as she could, for her neck kept getting entangled among
the branches, and every now and then she had to stop and
untwist it. After a while she remembered that she still held
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass
the pieces of mushroom in her hands, and she set to work very
carefully, nibbling first at one and then at the other, and growing
sometimes taller and sometimes shorter, until she had succeeded
in bringing herself down to her usual height.
It was so long since she had been anything near the right size, 233
that it felt quite strange at first; but she got used to it in a few
minutes, and began talking to herself, as usual. ‘Come, there’s
half my plan done now! How puzzling all these changes are! I’m
never sure what I’m going to be, from one minute to another!
However, I’ve got back to my right size: the next thing is, to get
into that beautiful garden–how IS that to be done, I wonder?’
As she said this, she came suddenly upon an open place, with
a little house in it about four feet high. ‘Whoever lives there,’
thought Alice, ‘it’ll never do to come upon them THIS size:
why, I should frighten them out of their wits!’ So she began
nibbling at the righthand bit again, and did not venture to go
near the house till she had brought herself down to nine inches
high.
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